When the crowd rioted at the Woodstock 30th
anniversary concert last July, any lingering remnants
of the '60s counter-culture spirit went up in flames
along with the stands torched by revelers.
The ensuing cross-generational debate about what
caused the mayhem was one of the hottest this decade.
The generation who lived through the original festival
called today's kids amoral, saying they enjoyed a cosy
existence and, unlike the baby boomers, had no good
reason to rebel. The young generation responded that
the old hippies who organised the concert had turned
their backs on peace and love, overcharging concert
goers for food and drink and not supplying enough
water and toilets.

Rage Against the Machine, one of the few
confrontational bands on the Woodstock bill with an
intelligent and focused agenda, hit the stage directly
after rap-metal band Limp Bizkit had openly encouraged
aggression.

Rage Against the Machine drummer Brad Wilk, who
witnessed the carnage that followed, lays blame on
both sides. But he adds that the worst culprits were
bands with a misguided idea of what punk means today.
"If you have a thousand sweaty fraternity kids and 90
weather with a lack of water and a lot of girls
walking round topless, they're going to get very edgy.
And when, on top of it, a band is screaming "I just
wanna break shit!", you're talking a recipe for
disaster. They were tearing the place up, trying to
rip apart sound boards and barriers."

Wilk says that by the time his band came on stag4e,
most of the crowd was exhausted from running amok.
"I want to remember what happened, but maybe I just
blocked it out because it was just such a horrible
experience. But when we went on, I remember feeling
disenchanted with the whole situation. We jus played
and left, and thought, "That was just fucked:, rather
than try to preach to a bunch of people who had just
rioted. We just played the show, stuck to our message,
hoped for the best and split. I don't know, but that's
what we did. It was whack.

"I really regret playing Woodstock. If I could do
things again, that's the one show out of my whole
career I could say that I wish we hadn't done."
Later, Wilk was horrified to hear that there has been
muggings and rapes at the concert. He compares his
feelings to those of Rolling Stones drummer Charlie
Watts, whose dismayed reaction can be clearly seen in
a footage of the infamous 1969 Altamount concert
festival when it became apparent a Hell's Angel, whose
organisation had been hired as security, had stabbed
and killed a punter.

"I felt just like Charlie when I found out what had
happened : "Oh, no! Festival gone wrong."

While Wilk believes Woodstock's tradition of
rebellion coupled with the Woodstock generation's
hypocrisy may have spurred bands and the audience to
riot, he thinks punk is in a sorry state.

"If they thought that was punk, then that's pathetic.
To me punk rock is supposed to be about rebelling
against things that are holding you back. But,
unfortunately, to every person, that's something
different. So, to me , it's just a word that has been
used to describe so many different emotions that I
don't think there is a true meaning of punk."

Interviews with drummers are not always enlightening.
Sticksmen don't have a reputation as intellectuals and
their insight into a band's music doesn't often go
past rhythms. But each of Rage Against the Machine's
members shares a deep understanding of its
philosophies.

While singer Zach de la Rocha writes the politically
charged lyrics, guitarist Tom Morello has the
strongest political background-his father was a member
of the Mau Mau guerilla army that freed Kenya from
British Colonial rule ; his mother is a founder of the
anti-censorship organisation Parents for Rock andRap ;
and he graduated from Harvard with a degree in social
studies in 1986. For Wilk, meeting such like-minded
musicians was the most liberating experience of his
life.

"When I first joined the band, my eyes were opened to
so many things, and my philosophies were right in
line. If you want to break it down to the basic human
emotions, it's all about taking the frustration and
anger and injustices in the world and having a release
from them."

De la Rocha doesn't pluck causes out of the newspaper;
he travels the world in search of great injustices.
While the others don't collaborate with de la Rocha on
lyrics, they all have a say in the organisations they
back and the benefit shows they play. And many of the
causes are half a world away from the band's home,
the US.

"I feel that it's very important for people to get
involved on a local level at some point in their
lives, because it's one thing to read the paper and
kind of understand what's going on globally from what
other people are writing. But a lot of people do that
and walk outside their doors with blinkers on."
When Wilk walks out of the door of his Los Angeles
home, he sees many homeless people who can't get
medical help. One of the organisations he supports is
the Los Angeles Free Clinic, which helps the homeless.
But the bands origins are musical, not philosophical,
says Wilk. It began when he placed a newspaper ad for
a "drummer looking for a band with many different
influences to form own unique sound." Morello applied
first, and the pair "totally clicked" from the first
day. The came le la Rocha and Timmy C. who were
looking for spirited collaborators.

"Unbelievable enough, the chemistry was undeniable and
intact, and I remember being completely blown from day
one. All of us realised :"Holy shit, there's something
going on here that we need to explore," and it just
snowballed from there. I may come in with a bit, or
Tom will come in with a riff, or Tim will come in with
a bassline, and it grows from there. It is definitely
a collaboration. No one ever comes in with a song and
says, "Hear this", which I think is one of the best
parts about being in this band, because everyone feels
very connected and a part of what's being put into the
music. Everyone is emotionally tied to this music, and
I think that comes across very strong on this album."
Wilk says the band believe their new album, The Battle
for Los Angeles, is their strongest work yet. They
wrote and recorded the music before de la Rocha spent
seven months writing the lyrics. It's a
ferocious-sounding record, with deep grooves from a
tight, inspired rhythm section. Proudly organic, it is
far funkier than the work of many technology-driven
rap-metal bands. Although Wilk swears by organic
music, he doesn't have a problem with technology.
"It's just something we enjoy doing. I enjoy listening
to bands that use samples and electronics, but, for
us, it's a challenge and it's more interesting. I
think that's what makes us different to other bands-
the type of grooves that we play together in a song
are so vastly different, but we make them work
together. It's not something that you really notice,
it's an unconscious thing."

Wilk believes the new album finally captures the
emotional intensity of their live shows. "There are
songs that, to me, sound like electronica-meets-punk
rock. We really challenged ourselves on this album"
The rap-rock-metal soundscape has shifted dramatically
since rage released their previous album Evil Empire
1n 1996. A glut of industrial rap-metal bands-largely
inspired by Rage-have connected with the millions of
angst ridden young males who bought their albums. But
while Rage deals with universal issues, bands such as
Korn and Limp Bizkit are primarily concerned with
personal demons. One argument is that the popularity
of such bands and their lyrics suggests the world is
becoming a more selfish place, and kids have too many
of their own problems to worry about those of others.
But Wilk believes change must start on a personal
level. "if you effect change in a positive way, first
you are going to exude that and want to effect change
on a larger level. Not that I'm saying that that's how
those bands are trying to influence kids." He believes
kids will always feel a need to escape into the
fantasy of rock music.

" A lot of rock music fans don't even deal with their
own personal issues when they listen to music. it's
just escaping their own thoughts for someone else's,
and that's how rock stars are born, out of that
attention. Music has an incredible influence on kids
in general, and right now that (fantasy) music is the
flavor of the month, and we're very excited to be
coming out with a record now to try to effect change
in the way that we do. With a few exceptions, like the
Beastie Boys, there aren't many bands being all that
thoughtful. It's all about trends and kids getting
caught in the whole marketing systems of record
companies," he says.

"Individually, everyone is affected differently by
music. But there's always going to be a kid who comes
to a Rage concert that has already conformed and knows
what we're talking about and is there to support us
because they relate to it. And there's the kid who's
purely there for the music and walks away without the
message- and our music is a positive outlet for anger
and frustration. When a kid gets the message and
slowly starts to become influenced by that in their
way and tries to effect change, that is the most
awesome feeling in the world, for us."

Rage's best known song, Killing in the Name of, is the
most riotous anthem of the "90s. The line "Fuck you/I
won't do what you tell me" is repeated eight times
before an explosion of blistering guitar. Like Sex
Pistols in the 70s, it has made millions of young
people a little more cynical about the establishment.
But, says Wilk, such songs aren't made to incite
aggression. "If we didn't have our philosophies and
causes in all of other songs, that song could have
been seen as just getting on a soapbox and trying to
incite a riot. We want to evoke that emotion, but
evoke it in a way that makes the listener get
frustrated with the injustices around them. Everyone
has the right to consider what exactly is an
injustice. Humans have been on this earth for a long
time and we still don't know why we're here, and I
don't think we even have a basic understanding of a
culture of what is right and wrong. Everyone has their
different views of that, and we're trying to portray
an image of what we think is right and wrong, and
leave it up to the listener to use that in an
intelligent manner, not just unabashed violence, which
is what happened at Woodstock."